Helen Williams Barbrow Interpretative Trail

Enjoy a walk through the crossroads of the Saltville Valley. From the Ice Age to the present, the Saltville Valley and its salt deposits have seen a parade of history. Ice Age animals, Native Americans, early settlers, soldiers of the North and the South, and later, industrialists all followed roads seeking mineral deposits left by a shallow inland sea.

The historical area on this trail, commonly called the well fields, is the site of paleontological and archaeological digs and salt production from the late 1700’s to the present. It is home to various flora and fauna including salt loving plants rare to the mountains of Southwest Virginia. The area was also the site of the Second Battle of Saltville in 1864.